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Thursday, December 23, 2010

Alabama Town’s Failed Pension Is a Warning

“Prichard is the future,” said Michael Aguirre, the former San Diego city attorney, who has called for San Diego to declare bankruptcy and restructure its own outsize pension obligations. “We’re all on the same conveyor belt. Prichard is just a little further down the road.”

Many cities and states are struggling to keep their pension plans adequately funded, with varying success. New York City plans to put $8.3 billion into its pension fund next year, twice what it paid five years ago. Maryland is considering a proposal to raise the retirement age to 62 for all public workers with fewer than five years of service.

Illinois keeps borrowing money to invest in its pension funds, gambling that the funds’ investments will earn enough to pay back the debt with interest. New Jersey simply decided not to pay the $3.1 billion that was due its pension plan this year.

Colorado, Minnesota and South Dakota have all taken the unusual step of reducing the benefits they pay their current retirees by cutting cost-of-living increases; retirees in all three states are suing.

its easy to kick the public service workers whether they were overpaid or not is the result of the past contracts made with their employer.federal ,state or municipal .Some of these workers may have been lower paid than the private sector workers the lower pay accepted because of promises of secure government guaranreed retirement pensions and benifits. Just because other workers investing their perhaps higher incomes in private pension funds that invested in bonds ,bank shares or other companies and property investments ,took a beating in the Ponzi economic crises to get jealous. And for the public to take a stick to smash the wages and rob the pension contracts with their past employees.Austerity .Just so the Fed can bailout banks and business investors.profits were private and losses socialised with taxpayer paid bonuses to the banksters .Now the call is being made to abandon and not pay the contracted public sector workers pensions and benifits ,including for the military ,police and fireman.Is that what american capitalism and its past labor contracts its solemn word with its own workers is worth?Contract law :To protect the rights of property and individuals of the different classes is at the heart of the American constitution for managing capitalism.Sometimes called the rule of law.when the contracts made with the workers are abandoned by government ,that is the law of rules of corporate state fascism.Robbery.

let me tell you from heart mr unions. you people have not done job right. The job of senaters, politicans, congress people, working with president is to make buildings, jobs, money, weapons, laws, t.v., set up police stations, fire stations, schools, plus other things. This is called 'progress'. The job of unions is to stop bosses from being mean, abusing power, unfair treatments, overpayed, underpayed employes, being bias against age, race, sex, color, plus other things. where are you union people. Huh. you protest here and there and then hide from there to here. You need to call it quits. I wanna see better street action from people calling for change. I wanna see equality. I wanna see a world where we are all equal.

2:08am...You are so wrong on so many levels...However in order to prove you wrong I leave myself open.

Let me just say a bit...I am a state cop...And although I love the amount I get paid I would say 80% of all cops and firemen do NOT earn their wages.

I've been a state employee for 10 years after running a business and the sh*t I saw would eat at you...Not the job...But the smugness and laziness of most state workers with zero work ethic.

Honestly if I ran a business again I would only hire MAYBE about 10% of the people I work with...As for the rest?...Some are very nice people but they produce NOTHING...Some are very nice people but they do NOTHING...Some are very nice people but the have NO SKILLS.

I'm a Darwinist...Don't ask me to feel sorry for these people and I know my state pays for training and education...My co-workers don't care about that...Hence where we're at...Bloated budgets that cannot continue without massive inflation.

The contracts cannot continue as they are...If they do then MASSIVE cuts/layoffs have to be made...However people don't care as long as it doesn't happen to THEM.

I'm sure by your tone 2:08 you have some years in a union and it's true we are a nation of contracts but what happens when the contracts kill the system?

Entitlements will kill the system...Then EVERYONE will suffer.

Lets be honest 2:08 am whatever job you or I have right now there is someone right now younger, faster and better willing to do it for 2/3rds of our pay.

If my department let me cut heads I would save the state MILLIONS and it would not affect anything...What does that tell you?...That we are bloated.

I save my department an average of $75k-$85k a year doing the work others would milk the clock for...I send people home who are trying to milk the clock...I help internally cover areas so we run on less people because honestly those people come to collect overtime not work.

What have you done for your department? If we all do a lil then the system will hold a while longer...But everyone is just out for themselves expecially the hardcore union members.

4:23 (SAM) EQUAL? MAYBE IN THE EYES OF GOD. ie. SALVATION? HOWEVER, REMEMBER THAT WHEN THE "BLUE SHIRTS" SIT DOWN TO NEGOTIATE THE "WHITE SHIRTS" THEY APPROVE IT! WHEN IT FAILS, GUESS WHO IS THE BLAME?? NEVER HERE ABOUT THEM BASTARDS?

2.08 only spoke of the rule of law in capitalism and of America honoring it PAST contracts with its “servants” to ordinary people that may have worked for years believing on the retirement promises of these contracts with government . 11 40 wants to abandon these contracts and the rule of law.

Unionized workers are only a small minority today.

Whether or not their union leaders have even been gangsters playing the system and some of the workers may even have been lazy parasites is beside the point.

Non contracted for fake bailout entitlements for banksters at taxpayer expense have already blown the Ponzi system up.Their own written contacts ,mortgages bonds and shareholder titles to assets were for a share of future profits. This involved an acceptence of risk.They got their good profits for years ,but as soon as things went bad for their Ponzi schemes, demanded that their losses be socialized at taxpayer expense.Where was TBTF "entitlementS" ever written into those contacts. What obligation did government have to bail them out?They killed the goose that laid the golden eggs.

12.37 says nothing about that, but wants to blame the public sector workers for insisting on their rights from past labor contracts ‘entitlements’ as what is going to bring the system down . And demands the right to abandon the PAST legal contracts.Of course whether the these Fed , state ,and municipal workers will get future labor contacts with the same level of benefits is a matter for future contracts .I am talking about past contracts and the validity of contact laws .Obviously if the bailouts continue America cannot afford the old levels of benefits if the Corporate State bailout system is to survive .What would our “Darwinist” save on ?Who is fit to survive here ?Only the banksters that now have power after a financial coup ?

11.40 claims to be a past "businessman" but is now sucking on the government teat, but claims to work harder than the other parasites at his workplace at policing the bankster run system.He says :

“I'm sure by your tone 2:08 you have some years in a union and it's true we are a nation of contracts but what happens when the contracts kill the system?

Entitlements will kill the system...Then EVERYONE will suffer.”

So you still have a well paid overpaid state job Eh?Another fat cop eating apples?Quote:“Let me just say a bit...I am a state cop...And although I love the amount I get paid I would say 80% of all cops and firemen do NOT earn their wages.”It seems you didn’t even have to join the unions to eat at the trough .What a man !No wonder you are anxious to preserve the system!

Are you going to give a refund back to the taxpayers for all your years as an overpaid “law n order” fraudster ???

Or just ready to accept a new honest cheap labor austerity future contract?

On the condition that all past contracts with workers are broken so they can share in your necessary pain for banksters !

The fact is ordinary Americans are already suffering and will suffer more from the greatest transfer of wealth between the working people including the middle class Debt peons in world history.

And that is a debt/credit based system that needs killing .

But you only want to point propaganda fingers at “unionists” not at the bankster subsidies and bailouts for fraud .

Actually, I believe all American workers ,not just government workers, unionized or not like yourself , were all parasitical under the great Ponzi system ,their class extracted more from the economic system than the value they created working for American businesses in manufacturing, or in business ,or government services.Like the banksters, their” profitability” was only a function of a top up by foreign supplied credit and the ability to buy on credit cheap labor third world commodities . The ever rising property values were bubble created by that foreign supplied credit and inflationary deficit money printing by the fed.

The Progressive Socialist 8:15 is strangely attractive to me. I always walk around with a hatred for the left, not that I like the neocons (PsuedoConservatives) like the Rush Limbaugh type.

I do tend to call most humans parasites and vampires. I am progressive when it comes to the mind and soul. I don't choose to keep attachments in other words. But I am a real conservative when it comes to society. When I see druggies, girls being sexually exploited, bad teachers, and people being idiotic I get sick. (Leftist Trademarks)

At the same time when I see the right wing types calling themselves conservative all the while praising the football game, laughing at the human killing depicted in cartoons like Family Guy or the Simpsons, denying self evident truths since it sounds Liberal, and pretending Sarah Palin raised a great daughter just because she is a Republican... this also makes me sick.

We need to start a new movement. Sort of a mix of a Progressive consciousness with Conservative ethos. We need to erase all the fallacies that the pseudo conservatives propagate and re-establish REAL Conservatism. It should blend the gap between the athiests and christians, this shouldn't have any correlation with religions. Both parties, church versus science, gay rights, abortion, and other senseless arguments intended to distract people should be dissolved and forgotten as we start a new slate.

New slate is simple: Liberals and Conservatives would be the same thing, the past dies. How could they be the same thing? Criteria for an Ethical Individual. (Conservative - Ethos, Individual/Intellectual - Progressive). So we forget what was and begin a new slate. The focus is intellectual progress; the conduct is self improvement. Each person builds discipline, honesty, courage, awareness, empathy, and chivalry while cultivating their minds, enhancing their creativity, logical reasoning, and refining their skills at various levels.

How could such a dream party be competed with? No more fake conservatives that sit on the sofa getting fat watching football. No more fake conservatives focusing on liberal bashing without ever even ordaining any real objectives because so much time was wasted by posting articles condemning leftist party members.

No more liberals trying to ban freedoms. No more liberals trying to influence children to do drugs and disrespect parents. No more liberal programs in schools that are designed to brainwash kids and dumb down the education system.

The dream party would fail because dreams don't always come true. I definitely have the Progressive in me though. When I see how deranged everything is and how dry it all feels, I pray the Great Spirit will annihilate it.